Soulful Sadhak

How to Order Interbeing when disorder is what we're seeing? What theory or philosophy Will make us bond beyond entropy Turn matter into energy And bring unity through diversity? How to Order Interbeing What can be more deeply freeing Than to arrive with every step Into this Pure Land we create Carrying the jacket of our Bodhicitta Do we take the leap of faith? How to Order Interbeing and to become real human beings To not be lost in thoughts or feelings And find real purpose and meaning Non-selves coming into oneness One Action to True Emptiness How to Order Interbeing And to meet Love’s high demand In the midst of separation We come together to make a stand Build the beloved community Until injustice is forever banned How to Order Interbeing Let our activism be an organism Practice openness, no dogmatism We are the light that breaks inside the prism Liberating us from mental prison Reconnecting us with ancient wisdom How to Order Interbeing And as a species to evolve? For our igno...

  I ran into the ground of my Being yesterday It smacked me in the face while i wasn’t paying attention As the ground rose up from under my feet I fell down touching the Earth and felt Her soft embrace The air was pressed from my lungs A heavy weight lifted from my chest I could breathe freely again While the Earth stood still my head stopped spinning my legs stopped running I was stuck to the ground Where were You when my head was in the clouds swept away by the winds? How did i lose touch? In the midst of my depravity The sky came down on me And as i circled back into Your gravity I was blessed to encounter reality

This poem is inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh's story about  the warrior and the pine gate . Dear old pine gate Please let me come inside I have slayed all my demons and traveled far and wide I want to return home and sit by my master’s side Dear old warrior To enter through my door you must have a pure intention and stop running after more delusion, greed and hatred can pervert you at your core Oh petty pine gate Why don’t you open for me? So hard have i fought for all beings to be free Why do you hold me back from celebrating victory? Oh hard-headed warrior I cannot let you in Go sit by the river Did you really win? Take out your looking glass Do you see virtue or sin? Oh pitiless pine gate Am i at the gate of heaven or the gate of hell? I don’t know where I’m headed Please can you tell Was I really so glorious Or did my soul I sell? Oh weary warrior You have nothing left to hide Where else for you to go then to look deep inside Did you really slay your demons or was your demon pride?...

 This is a new song i wrote, inspired by Plum Village and the mystical poetry of old. In Plum Village, we have this saying: 'to be a drop in the Sangha (community) river' and to 'flow with the Sangha'. This led me to writing this song:       Lyrics   Into You i want to flow and of my self to let go To be one with the waves Any peril i can brave    I will stand through the storm Here i will die and be reborn Won’t you join hands with me as we dive into the sea        CHORUS Sea of love, take me Sea of love, wake me Sea of love   To be a drop in Your ocean Letting go of every notion Swaying only with Your motion Is the most profound emotion   To find the greatest love Far below is high above In these waters i will drown Deeper deeper i go down        CHORUS   To go beyond birth and death from my first to my last breath Sea you are my womb and sea you’ll be my tomb        CHORUS ...

A man sits alone at the piano and stares into the void all he notes is silence Where did the sound come from and where does it go after the final key lands? Waves of undulating melodies spill over into an ocean of emptiness When do they reach the shore? In this cosmic dance, who is the instrument and who is the player?

 Here's a little song i wrote about oneness and non-duality. I am the sky, I am the wind I am its sweet soft whispering I am the Earth I am the moon This is her song this is her tune That has no beginning and no end I hope one day you understand All the answers are within That’s why I am singin’ CHORUS We are one, we are one We are one, we are one I am the light, I am the dark This is the calling of the lark In the dawn before we rise To see a new sun rise With all our joy and all our pain Nothing to lose nothing to gain So break free from these bars And sing with open hearts CHORUS Let us walk hand in hand And together we will stand We’re emotion, we are love A higher force from up above A new song in a new key To take these chains and set us free I am you and you are me Let us sing in harmony CHORUS A new day now will come Where we will all live as one This is the voice deep inside That no longer wants to hide So let’s stop to pretend I am your brother,* I am your fri...

A piece about my life in Sadhana Forest  and how living in a sustainable reforestation community contributes to my understand of Interbeing. Originally written for Wake Up . Adapted from an earlier post . Tree planting in Sadhana Forest The past four years, I have been living and volunteering in an eco-community in South India. We live very simply in thatched roof huts made from local, natural materials. Our community is off-grid and uses only electricity from our solar panels and the water we draw from our well. In our daily life, we practice reforestation, bringing back to life an almost extinct indigenous tropical forest on a 70-acre piece of land, returning water, trees, and life to a once-barren and deserted area. I have learned many practical things about community life and sustainable living practices, but the deepest teaching while living this life has been a very direct, lived experience of the reality of Interbeing. Living this close to nature and actively participat...

 A cloud never dies Photo: Max Pugh You are leaving, but every moment you are still arriving in every step and every breath I take Your eyes are closed, but I can see you more clearly now in the clouds and in the water in my tea You are no longer here, yet I see you everywhere in the smile of a child and the blossoms of spring Your voice is silent, if it weren’t for the singing of birds and the rustling of leaves in the wind There is no coming and no going as you are leaving, you are only returning to us The greater the distance between us, the more we carry you in our hearts You have left a void, which we can only fill with the the practice you gave us We feel an emptiness, but we know we are only empty of a separate self My sadness is beyond limits, but so are the gratitude and love I feel today A bottomless hole is gaping in my soul, from which a wellspring of compassion rises I am at a loss for words, my mind is blank and yet understanding is born: The boddhisattva stands majes...

 A Lovesong with a Twist Sometimes - not often - inspiration comes to me in the form of a pop/folk song. It is not the form of expression I am most familiar with (I am not the greatest singer or musician to say the least), but I like this form of expression nonetheless. I can communicate serious ideas, but at the same time, pop songs have this kind of lightheartedness to them that encourages me not to take myself to seriously. So my songs always have different levels to them. On one level I am sharing deep truths, but on the other hand I am also questioning myself and trying to put things into perspective. In this way I also want to encourage people to look beyond outward appearances, and to move beyond black and white thinking. So this particular song is inspired by my own life, I do feel attracted to other spiritual practitioners, because, for me, that is something that I want to share, nourish and deepen in the context of a relationship. Yet, on the other hand, those practitione...

Everything we have and hold dear will one day go away and disappear Don’t ask me if I love you you know in this moment I’ll always be true To the sun, the stars and the skies above and shower all living beings with love And every time I see my Beloved’s face I feel blessed with heavenly grace And ease into the flow of life let go of all my struggle and strife Live life like we were meant to be and in my heart, we will always be free No, this love was not meant to be caged but to be played out on a cosmic stage To quench the soul’s deepest desire and let it burn us like a funeral pyre And when we are wholly consumed by the flame we will at last return whence we came 

I wish I could love you like the sun My light always shining bright To give freely and hold back none My soothing rays reach wide Promising to overcome The gloom, darkness and the fright That come when day is done And there is no light in sight I’d be there to help you grow And reach out for the sky When your head is hanging low I’ll make your tears go dry And when you don’t know where to go Come in the blink of an eye To lighten up your day and show You how to be free and fly For a billion years I will shine And longer if I must Until your heart is fully mine And the universe goes bust I’ll be clear as the sky, no lyin’ And will gather all your trust I’ll guide you and make sure you’re fine Till we return to stardust But I am not the sun my dear I do not dispel the night I cannot love without fear I have only the spark inside To overcome the final frontier And with lightning speed take flight Make all our shadows turn clear And a greater love ignite

They say that it in the bush the seeds only sprout after a bush fire Look closely Today's storm is carrying in it the seeds of tomorrow Listen to the thunder The rumbling of the old falling apart is the birth cry for the arrival of what we have been carrying inside of us for so long We may be alone and isolated now the land lies barren and fallow But when this wind blows over we will be together again Let it be the moment to step out of our separateness into a new plain of existence Where we reap the fruits of these seeds that have been waiting in the depths of our consciousness Look deep inside before you go outside Listen closely attune yourself The time is ripening Prepare the soil Don't spoil this opportunity Prepare your soul Be ready to embrace the new as a whole

The spirituality of a sustainable lifestyle The environment. It is a big issue these days. Our society lags behind in coming up with the right answers. Even in our own lives it is not easy to become aware of all the problems involved and live a life that is wholly sustainable. These issues are so deeply rooted in our society and it would take such a radical change to break away from all of them. It is easy to be acquiescent and just settle for second best. It can be even easier to just lose hope and settle with resentment. However, I think it is worth the effort to try and live a life the is integrally sustainable, for I belief that is not only good for our planet, but it is also a deeply mindful life, one where every action we take connects us with all living beings on our planet. The restoration work of Sadhana Forest I will share with you my story of how I try to live a life that is fully sustainable. It made me quit my job back home in Belgium and move to India to go and live in a ...

Today is an auspicious day, I am turning thirty. Thirty years I have walked this planet, and I am still alive (and kicking!). What an achievement! Society tells me I should celebrate with lots of alcohol to forget all the worries and doubts about my slowly decaying body and the direction my life is going, but rather than that, I would like to take some time to sit down and reflect. Thirty, and feeling younger than ever! I have the impression many people around me dread the day they turn thirty, as if somehow now they are ‘old’ and there life will be over. There seems to be an aversion towards ageing in our society that keeps proclaiming in movies and advertisements the possibility of an eternal youth if we just use the right hair lotion and buy the right fancy car. For me however, it is nothing like this. I have actually been looking forward to the day I am leaving my twenties and the illusion of this so called ‘eternal youth’. I feel I am ready for it, bring it on, being a thirty...

Do not fail your New Year's resolutions, rather make a resolution to fail, and to learn from it and grow. It is New Year today. All over the world people are making resolutions for the new year. And soon all over the world, people will be failing to keep them as well. Why? Why do we go through the effort of making these resolutions every year, and why do we so often give up on them? What is so enjoyable about this game of trying to force ourselves into doing things we probably know we will never do anyway? I think most people make resolutions because they feel they have to. They are unhappy with themselves about something and feel pressured by their peers or society, or just by themselves, to change. There is no joy in their resolutions, rather, they try to push themselves into doing things which they actually dislike doing – such as eating less, watching less Netflix – just because they feel guilty about doing them. These kinds of guilt feelings however, are rarely a good foundati...

I have been studying and practicing many different kinds of religion and spiritual practices for some years now, and I recently discovered there is a big scam going on. I saw it in many people, in how they behaved, talked and walked, but I mostly saw it in my own approach to spiritual practice. What does religion really teach? The thing is, what often happens when people turn to a certain religion or practice – whether it be radical Islamism or seemly harmless meditation practice – is they think they have found ‘The Way’. They think their old ways were wrong and that they have to change and become a different person. They might even start proselytizing feverously – much to the annoyance of others – or – in the worst case scenario – become violent or aggressive towards people who think differently. The primary violence however is in our own heads, the primary violence we direct towards ourselves. You see, the moment people give themselves to a particular path, they go a bit crazy. Somet...

When one gets involved in spiritual practice, one often comes across people who seem to be full of love. They seem to bask in some sort of divine light. They are full of smiles and hugs, continuously wish everyone the most beautiful things and never let a moment go by to express how wonderful everything and everyone they meet is. The longer I practice, the more – forgive me for being frank – these people start to bother me. Why all this talk about love? Why all these flowery words filled with rainbows, unicorns and sunshine? Are they trying to make up for something? Or maybe trying to hide something? If you are full of joy, just feel joy, why this urgent need to put it into words? Isn’t the feeling of joy in itself enough of a blessing? And if you really love someone, he or she can just tell by the look on your face, by a simple smile or the touch of a hand. When you really love other people, you feel it, and they will feel it too. If you are confident enough, they will be able to tell...

What makes up the essence of a true spiritual life? When is one truly religious? How often should one pray or meditate? Just how much good must one do unto others? You can do a lot of good deeds, but you may do it just for reputation. Some people seem to be very devout, but there prayer may be shallow. In fact, one can meditate the whole day and not do any real spiritual practice. And I have met taxi drivers and shopkeepers in my life that were much more religious than some of the monks I have met. I think the core of religious life is not in how much one prays or meditates, not even in how much time you devote to selfless service, rather it stems from the attitude in which these things are done. This is for instance why Jesus says (Mt 6:5) only hypocrites are praying on the street corner in order to be seen. He knows when one’s spiritual life is shallow. Then what makes up this religious attitude? What is the core of a religious life? To me, to be really spiritual means to no longer p...

Often in live, we find ourselves stuck in our longing for ‘that one thing’. That ‘one thing’ can be anything: a relationship, a job, a diploma, or anything else we want to achieve. When we are stuck in this longing, it seems like nothing else really matters. It is always there in the back of our minds, consuming our energy, often without us even being aware of it. We tell ourselves we just need to have that one thing and only then we will be happy, then we will be where we need to be. At the same time it seems very hard to achieve. No matter how hard we try, it is always just out of reach. It seems to slide through our fingers like water. We tell ourselves we need to try just a little harder or maybe in a slightly different way, and then we will be fine. At the same time we seem to beat ourselves up for not getting it. We start creating a whole story around it. Why is it so hard for me? What is wrong with me? We start comparing ourselves. Everyone else seems to have it, so why can’t I?...

My mind is an ocean To her all the world does flow On the surface that may cause motion But she is still deep down below There is nothing she doesn't embrace She encompasses all Whatever she may face She faces and stands tall The ocean does not discriminate It takes in all you give It's always in the same state just live and let live The ocean does not go anywhere It has no future and no past It has always been there And forever it will last Come and sit by my side, my dear And watch the waves roll in And when you've overcome your fear You can begin to swim